Christ - Avatâra - Incarnation

[Introduction still in progress...]

Commonalities between Christianity and Hinduism

Love of God (bhakti) is a central—and
perhaps the most visible—dimension of both Christianity
and Hinduism. Growing out of an exclusive sacrificial cult conserved by priests
(ancient Judaism, brahmanism), both religions have attempted to universalize
our relationship to the divine transcendence through a framework of worship
that facilitated the acculturation of diverse ethnic traditions within a larger
socio-religious order. However, they have both retained the sacrificial core
in the background, whether in the figure of the Son of God crucified on the
Cross only to be resurrected in spirit (as still enacted in the sacrament of
the Eucharist), or in the actual practice of immolation to the gods even where
reduced to innocuous vegetal substitutes. Indeed, the Trinity in either religion
cannot be fully understood except as an attempt to conserve the sacrificial
dialectics within a universalizing bhakti open to all regardless of of
class or ethnic origin. This confluence of differing
understandings of Christianity (Gnostic, Catholic, Orthodox,
Protestant) and Hinduism (brahmanical, bhakti,
tantric, popular)—including the various rational 'points of
view' (darshana) elaborated by theologians in both
traditions—is intended to facilitate systematic comparison and to encourage
cross-cultural dialogue. Our own focus on bhakti and aesthetics might
hopefully provide a privileged space for a meaningful—even transformative—encounter
because it scrutinizes the very nature, motivation, modes, constraints and purpose
of 'philosophizing' as well as its roots in non-rational modes of apprehending
the world. Many of these essays are reworkings of previous conversations from
Abhinavagupta (and
other related forums) and discussions are best pursued there.

Differences between Christianity and Hinduism

Whereas Rabbinic Judaism has long since tempered
Judaism's proselytizing zeal, Christianity has not only conserved this ancient
monotheism project of unifying the whole world under the banner of a single
God, but pursues it now with all the weapons that modernity has placed at its
disposal. This is apparent not only in the Pope's declaration, as a guest on
Indian soil no less, of his desire to harvest the whole of Asia for Christianity;
but also in the well-documented and highly politicized agenda of fundamentalist
(especially American) Protestant missionaries in converting the masses in sensitive
regions of the Indian Union. Though a millennium has gone by since the demise
of Indian Buddhism, Hinduism for its part remains imbued with an otherworldly
orientation ??? [to be completed]